


Ever Watching, Ever Waiting

by chattering_tchotchke



Series: The Steps Closer to Home—TerrAqua Week 2019 [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Terraqua Day 2019 (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 23:43:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chattering_tchotchke/pseuds/chattering_tchotchke
Summary: Day 3 Prompt: SeasonsShe looks on as her children play, grow, love together.





	Ever Watching, Ever Waiting

She’s been here for ages, by now. She’s seen quite about everything and then some, but things always managed to surprise here. Her children are young and she wishes it could last forever—she knows it won’t, it can’t. It never does. It had been such a short time since those two—

But she cannot do much of anything. Her heart is too big for her to move; it had been made from the care of so many who lived in her. She cannot leave, she must stay and watch, and sometimes that is too much for her. It’s something she hopes is in existence the worlds round, that old things like her are loved enough to be. Of course, she cannot leave to find out, rooted as she is in the mountain.

So she watches as pink blooms and dies in so few days. She watches her children grow, watches them laugh and argue and play on the mountain. It’s the only thing she can do.

They’re so very assured of themselves, this boy and girl. Their ambitions and dreams are too big for them now. She can only hope that they’ll be let down slowly, gently, in the way that so many of her children weren’t. That never happens. But they’re only children—she wonders at the cruelty of destiny, and destiny whispers sweet nothings of past successes until she forgets. And then she doesn’t, and then she does.

They fight on either side of the dirt-mountain near the garden, hurling clods of “spells” at each other and insisting that their barriers are too strong to be breached.

“_No_, my armor’s too _strong_ for you to get me.”

“Your armor isn’t on!”

If he had any armor, it surely would’ve blocked the lump of dirt now sitting on his shirt. Unless it’s the kind she can’t see.

“Yeah it is! I put it on just before you hit me!”

“My spell went through your armor!”

“But I have a— a special layer that stops those spells!”

“You don’t, you’re just cheating!”

“You’re cheating!”

The argument spirals into a similar series of retorts, then their master has to come and, quite literally, hose them down. But it’s summer now, summer and hot and forever; it’s more refreshing, in their minds, than it is cleaning.

The banning of the dirt-mountain does nothing to impede their play. They take to the stream and begin fighting side by side. It’s a never-ending battle against the giant monster in the shadows of each tree and cliffside or the thousands of tiny imps that sneak up behind when they’re not looking.

When did her children get so much older?

“Nemo! You’re injured! ‘Tis a mortal wound,” she shrieks, in imitation of the fantastical stories she’s heard of knights saving children from the darkness.

“Then I shall die in battle,” he gasps, flopping over at the cue. “But it shall not be as a soulless warrior— I have learned love, because of you, Aliquis.”

Ah—it’s that story. She continues to watch, intrigued at the sheer devotion to which they reenact Aliquis and Nemo—the one knight who taught the heartless knight what love meant. Once travelers came to her and told the stories, and she clung onto them with every brick, nurturing her heart on each different one.

And they were always so different. Sometimes Nemo dies shielding Aliquis, or dies fighting at her back. Sometimes Aliquis dies and Nemo is left to walk through the Unending Fields alone, but she hates those ones. She forgets if Aliquis was really a knight in the original story, though everyone makes it that way. She prefers it.

“Not so! Not so!” She rushes over, dripping wet, and lays a smooth blue-gray rock on his forehead. This is new. “I shall give you my armor, for it contains a spell of healing for even the most gre-vi-ous wounds. Today is not the day for death; it is the day for life!”

Insofar as she’s heard it go, only one of the pair ever survives. It’s a tale of unrequited love and tragedy, but her children have made it rather less so. Right now, they interpret the love in the story as of friendship—some do, some don’t, and it’s always been vague on that matter. It’s up to the bard, the poet, the speakers in great halls to tell the story in their own way, ever-changing with their different lives.

It ends now, with the pair trekking off to face the Unending Fields together. It is both more and less than an ending, she thinks as she looks on. It leaves her wanting more, and she starts imagining ways it could continue.

Training begins in earnest the next day; no more time for elaborate playacting outside. They begin to learn what they had once only dreamed of—and they grow so fast.

Eventually, she takes in another child, crumbling feathers of light, on the solstice. She does what she can for him, shelters him, and her older children do much more. They feed him, comfort him and she is proud of how they’ve grown so.

He gets better. It’s something about the love given so generously that heals his heart, and something about the time to rest. In time he is back to what must have been his former self, and she loves him so—though she will always hold a special place in her heart for the first two, she will always love all her children.

It’s summer and hot and forever, and then it isn’t. The flowers on the mountain begin to fade, slowly, tenderly, and the air chills away from a sticky wetness. The wind, when there is any, blows harsher.

Everything, of course, changes with fall. It does as a matter of nature, it’s the time for death, but it’s a death with the vow of renewal. This time, auburn-gold leaves rot into gray. She doesn’t see that until it’s too late.

Every bit of focus is on her children, growing up and ready to become independent. Perhaps, she had thought when stopping her watch over them, perhaps they would become more confident in speaking to each other. After all, she’s felt tears of stress from both of them, as they wonder whether they’re good enough, whether they’re overthinking what a feeling is.

They still interact with each other from day to day, but gone is the time when they would freely declare love—they fear it may not be taken seriously enough, and then what? After their fears leave, self-loathing makes itself comfortable in their souls.

_—too good for me._

_—wouldn’t even like you back anyway, stupid, why would you—_

She is powerless to protect them from their own minds. If only she could speak, so tell them all what they needed to hear—they’re not foolish for wanting more than what they see as naught but a friendly smile and banter, for wondering _if_. She is but stone and wood, and such a wish is impossible.

And so life goes on, and more leaves fall—everything falls. The Master dies and dies and dies again in her memories, when her child collapses and looks so small. When she’s torn apart, laying in pain until she comes to transform her, hiding away a secret child.

Fall turns to winter, in this time. It should’ve turned to winter, but she’s lost track of time. Everything’s frozen around her, cold and dark; it must be winter. It’s a forever of waiting.

No, winter isn’t forever, not for her. Forever means warmth, love. Winter is just unending.

She feels her first two children (she fears when she cannot feel the third) reach out to each other, time and time again. They never connect, and their loneliness is an aching, spreading crack. She has to wonder if they are dying, dying, dying slowly, unknowing of where the other is. It would be a torturous thing for those with hearts such as theirs.

The lights begin to fade, on of the brightest worlds disappearing after a tearing of her heart-strings. One by one the stars go out, without their guardians. Then, after so long, they start to return.

Spring arrives with their return. She could not be more overjoyed; her children are back—but so aged now. She could not protect them from the evil of the worlds, and they have grown.

But they are back. That alone is a blessing, and if she is not thankful for that, her existence would be cold indeed.

Flowers bloom and the garden starts to grow again. They train. She trains the younger boy and he _flies_. It is beautiful and wonderful and right that they restarted their lives. Right now, they give no signs of leaving, even for a short while. Perhaps it is selfish of her, but she doesn’t wish for them to leave for a long time and then some.

Her first two are still pining, still silent of their feelings. She had felt their resolve before the accursed exam, to tell of their yearning. Now they do not tell each other of their feelings. They just wish—not from afar, they are too close for that—but say nothing. Of course they say nothing. It’s such a new thing to introduce, just after the end of it all.

And they are dealing with so much. The nightmares don’t let them bolt upright to scream, they drag them down into more until the nights become sleepless from dread. The memories don’t fade, or even sit still; they jump out of minds and around corners in ways that should not be possible—but the mind is so very strange, sometimes.

One night leaves her first two wandering around to meet in the kitchen.

“I was going to get some...” The words trail off, uncertain.

“Hot chocolate?”

“I guess. Wasn’t sure, actually, but that sounds like the best idea.”

They make their cups side by side, with less than a word passing between each minute.

“Would you want to come over to my room for the rest of the night? I mean— I can’t sleep, it wouldn’t be—”

“—oh, I can’t— sleep either. I was going to stay down here or something.”

“ ‘s only two. We’ve got a lot of time on our hands.”

“Mhm.”

Thus begins a series of similar nights, with roundabout, weary conversations that don’t end so much as taper off. She knows them well enough to know that they’re dancing around the question in a meticulously choreographed number, all while thinking they’re the only one doing so. Some might call it infuriating and oblivious, but it is understandable. They are afraid—of something no one can describe. They wish to be loved, to be known, not knowing if they are worthy to be loved or known. Which is ridiculous to her; she knows them and she loves them.

Of course they do not know that. They can barely love themselves as it is, how could they really love another? The question seems to haunt them. It tugs at her heart, to feel theirs in such great pain.

But they still love one another, even if not with romance. They give of themselves, in their company and time, and at least their friendship is strong as ever.

The day comes when things change. She’s seen it coming, they’d seen in coming. Confidence had grown alongside hours of working side by side in the garden, exchanging jokes and laughs and the tender assurance that everything was getting better.

_I’ll tell her today. I have to tell her today. She’ll understand, at the very least._

_I have to talk to him. Light, I need him to understand so badly._

They meet up by pure “accident,” in a way that would seem perfectly normal and befitting of any morning. A few contrived questions later to steer the direction, and they begin to finally suspect the other.

She wishes to know more, but the entire week has been tiring. She stayed to watch them talk. Night after night after night catches up to her. She slumbers.

When she comes to, they are talking to each other, deep in one of her rooms.. Of course she gives them privacy; she would not be very loving if she didn’t. Then they come out, holding hands and laughing. There’s a happy little tilt to their walk; they lean against each other.

Spring has finally returned in earnest, and the flowers have bloomed. They’ve never been so lovely.


End file.
